WikiLeaks: Berri Asks Who Will Need Hizbullah if Shabaa Farms are Liberated?
Speaker Nabih Berri believed that liberating the Shabaa Farms would eliminate the reasons for maintaining the Resistance, revealed a leaked U.S. Embassy cable published exclusively in Al-Akhbar Wednesday.
A WikiLeaks cable dated July 25, 2006, reported on a meeting between the speaker and then U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman during which Berri voiced his opposition to Hizbullah’s disarmament if the Shabaa Farms remained occupied.
He asked: “Who will need Hizbullah if they are liberated?”
An August 5, 2006, cable reported on Berri’s assertion that the Lebanese army will be deployed in the South, saying that he would personally drive a jeep at the head of the Lebanese tanks ahead of the deployment.
He also rejected the possibility of Israel remaining on Lebanese soil, noting that such a development will not end the hostilities between the party and the Jewish state.
In addition, Berri rejected the idea of the deployment of international troops in southern Lebanon, said a cable date August 9, 2006.
He said that if there was an insistence on their deployment, then they should be placed in Israel.
Two days later, he told the Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of State David Welsh that “history should note his position” that maintaining the occupation of the Shabaa Farms will not end disputes with Israel.
Berri maintained his position throughout the July 2006 war that the Resistance will be victorious, adding that Israel will fail “as long as it continues its air and land operations.”
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